Hamann: “It looks like he’s begging for the sack”

Dietmar Hamann has said that Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea career will end if he continues to weaken relations with players.

The Portuguese has openly criticised several players so far this campaign, including Branislav Ivanovic, Eden Hazard and Nemanja Matic.

“Some of the stuff he [Mourinho] is coming out with at the moment and over recent weeks is not far from a meltdown. It’s John Carver-esque,” Hamann said to talkSPORT.

Chelsea have made their worst start to a season in over 30 years, having won just three of their opening nine games, and former Liverpool and Manchester City midfielder Hamann has said that the dressing room atmosphere at Stamford Bridge could be to blame:

“I don’t know what’s going on with the owner and what the circumstances are, but to me at times it looks like he’s begging for the sack.

“The thing that worries me about Chelsea is that he seems to be falling out with all the players. If you want to get a reaction from a player and you put him on the bench like he did with [Eden] Hazard the other day, it’s not a problem. But you don’t bring him on in the 89th minute to humiliate him and embarrass him even further.

“And he’s done it with most of the players. [Branislav] Ivanovic has been labelled as a player who hasn’t performed this season, which may be true, but if you do it with one or two players to get a reaction that’s fair enough, but I think he has done it to most of them now.

“If you want to be successful, come Saturday, Mourinho can’t score the goals. You need your players, your main players, on board.

“John Terry was humiliated after the Manchester City game when Mourinho said, ‘I’ve backed him through thick and thin and I can do whatever I want with him’. No, no, he’s not an it, he’s a player who has been the heart of that Chelsea team for the past 15 years.

“If I look into the Chelsea dressing room now, do I think the majority of players would like to see the back of him? Yes, I think they would.

“He’s upset everybody for no reason. Things have not been going well but it’s still early in the season. They’ve made a good start in the Champions League, and in the Premier League there is a long way to go. Can they win the league from where they are? It will be very tough, but it’s early doors and you can’t treat top class players like that.

“It was all nice and fine when he first came here and he was the ‘Special One’ and he was winning games. We can all have a big mouth when we’re winning games, it’s what you do when you lose. You have to have a certain humility about you.

“Once you have that mood in the dressing room, and I can imagine what the likes of Hazard, Ivanovic, even Terry think about him, once you lose that respect and that trust for the manager, it’s curtains. It’s over. End of.

“If he wants to keep his job until the end of the season you’ve got to see a different Chelsea over the next few months. Can I see it? I’m not too sure, I don’t think they can. I’ll be stunned if he’s there by the end of the season.”